Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,
In light of your recent inquiry, I would ask that you come to Canterlot so that you, Luna and myself may discuss it over tea. You’ve broached a complex, delicate, and potentially dangerous subject, so I feel it necessary to give you as much knowledge as I can to defend yourself should the need arise. I know that just hoofing over the answers isn’t my usual teaching method, but aside from Luna and I there are literally no other resources that are available or trustworthy.
However, I would ask that you do not share this knowledge with anyone else, including your friends and family, without my or Luna’s explicit permission. If you know of anyone else who knows about your inquiry, please bring them along with you.
I will have my personal collection of journals ready for your perusal when you arrive.
Your teacher,
Princess Celestia
Twilight Sparkle
Do not attempt to find the beings you wrote about. If eavesdropping on them is what prompted you to write to sister, they are almost certainly too dangerous and too unknown for you to confront directly, assuming you can track them down to begin with. Sister and I will deal with them after our rendezvous.
-Luna
* * *
Anticipation and nervousness gnawed at my stomach as I walked towards Celestia’s chambers. My wings fidgeted slightly, the feathers brushing the legs of Spike, who was currently riding on my back. The hurried walk from the station to the castle had worn him out, though I suspected he had recuperated by now if his excited squirming was any indicator.
My legs moved on autopilot while my mind whirled with possibilities. What could the princesses have in store for us? How could simply knowing about something be so dangerous, to where I couldn’t even tell my friends? Was there a new supervillain? No, that doesn’t make any sense, if it was another villain wouldn’t it be best for everypony to know about what’s coming? What if it was something that targeted those who knew about it, like a secrecy-obsessed changeling? No, that didn’t make any sense either, if everypony knew about it then it would have a much harder time abducting anypony because everypony would know what to look out for. Unless it was powerful enough to spirit away whole towns? Had I stumbled across something that came straight out of a Love Craft story and unwittingly doomed myself and Spike to a gibbering descent into madness, and now the princesses were playing damage control for the greater good?
Stop it, me. There’s no point in getting worked up right now. The princesses will explain in due time. And there aren’t any cosmic horrors out to get us simply because we overheard a word.
I eyed Spike out of the corner of my eye. He had a wide grin on his face, his claws only making a token effort to hide it, and I could hear him quietly chuckle underneath his breath. What did he think this was about?
I opened my mouth to ask him, but paused as I eyed a nearby maid dusting a tapestry, blissfully unaware of the dangerous word we could accidentally slip out in a conversation and thus drag her down with us into whatever our situation was. My question could wait.
I paused in front of Celestia’s doors, steeling myself for whatever forbidden knowledge the Princesses would share, then pushed the door open with a mask of determination. Spike’s grin grew as he slid off my back and followed.
“Princess?” I asked as I tentatively stepped inside. Spike strode in like he owned the place. Celestia and Luna were already seated on a rug in the middle of the floor, with a tea set between them. They were both poring over a single, aged, untitled book pulled from an equally-aged luggage trunk behind them, though they both looked up when we opened the door.
“Twilight! Spike!” Celestia greeted us with a smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m glad you could make it so quickly. Come, close the door and have a drink. We have much to discuss.”
“Indeed,” Luna added with a frown, looking down at the book again. She was silent for a moment as Spike and I took seats on cushions placed opposite of the sisters. “Rereading these makes me wish you hadn’t heard what you did, not without it coming from us, but alas...”
I frowned back. “I don’t get it,” I said as Luna wove an enchantment on the walls. A privacy spell. “What’s so dangerous about these… planeswalkers? What are they, even? And why are we being so secretive?”
“Is it like a secret, world-spanning criminal organization that’s existed since time immemorial?” Spike asked, still grinning.
Celestia quietly chuckled and nibbled on a tea cake while Luna’s frown deepened. “Nay, though if a planeswalker wanted to make one they could do better than ‘just’ world-spanning,” Luna mused. She closed the book, gazing intently on Spike and I. Her stare made me fidget and shrink back. It was like she found us lacking in some unfathomable quantity.
“At its absolute simplest, a planeswalker is a being born with an innate gift to cross the Æther that separates planes,” she said.
Luna’s delivery was casual, but her simple, little statement stunned me into complete silence for a few seconds as I let its implications sink in. Crossing the Æther. Other planes. Direct confirmation of the existence of other worlds by Princess Luna herself. Why hadn’t they said anything about this earlier? This was huge! The entire scientific community would scramble over each other to visit them!
“There are planes besides Equus!?” I exclaimed.
“Wait, so they’re aliens?” Spike asked.
“Calm thyselves,” she continued, stern. “Yes, they are technically aliens, and yes, there are more worlds than just ours, but before you bombard us with questions,” Luna rapped a hoof on the trunk, “I imagine you’ll find many of your answers in ‘Tia’s journals…”
I eyed the trunk.
“...and before you begin your perusal, we must caution you.”
I eyed the trunk again. That was a lot of books about other worlds.
“Where was I? This innate gift, known as the Spark, is distributed randomly in what amounts to a… cosmic lottery, I suppose.” She grimaced. “Foul horror, noble hero, driven artificer, peaceful aesthetic, wealthy princess, bitless peasant, fate cares not for what sort of person receives this power, which makes any uninformed encounter dicey. Which is why...”
“...you didn’t want me to attempt contact with them,” I finished, thinking about what sort of conversation a world-crossing being would make. What sort of culture would they have? What about their science and magic? Would they function like our own? What sort of progress could be made?
Wait. Wealthy princess?
Luna nodded. “Neither of us wanted to take the risk that you had stumbled across a creature that was crafty or strong enough to use you for ill gains. Regardless, ‘Tia and I are better suited for tracking them down than you are.”
Better suited than I to track beings that cross worlds? It took me all of two seconds to connect the dots, and I blame it taking even that long because I was still thinking about other worlds and how the princesses wanted to keep this quiet. Celestia was observing me from behind her teacup, and a mirthful smile grew on her face as realization dawned on my own.
“You two are planeswalkers too?”
The princesses nodded. “Among the oldest still around, in fact,” Luna said, a hint of pride leaking into her voice.
“B-but why does nopony know about this? Any of this?” I protested. “I looked everywhere! There’s just so much that could be learned and and and-”
Celestia quieted me with an apologetic look. “The reason we’re being so secretive about this is because we don’t want to draw unwanted attention. As Luna said, there are many planeswalkers out there that care little for peace and harmony, only for personal gain. Some would look at our plane and see a rich world of magic to plunder. Others would simply take perverse pleasure inflicting horrors upon its inhabitants. And we aren’t without personal enemies.”
“This plane is a backwater,” Luna said. “Well-hidden, peaceful, idyllic, and woefully underprepared to defend itself should one of our foes seed a Phyrexian contagion somewhere or lure an Eldrazi brood to us. Secrecy and remoteness are our greatest defenses, which is another reason why the appearance of two presumable ‘walkers concerns us. If the word ‘planeswalker’ is thrown around too much, in general we become antsy and start looking for our interplanar kin. And if word gets out that Celestia and Luna Planeswalker reside here...”
Luna trailed off, and her gaze drifted towards the wall. She wasn’t really looking at the designs though.
“...our enemies would find many opportunities to harm us indirectly.”
“That’s not to say all planeswalkers besides ourselves are monsters,” Celestia added gently. “We’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with many wonderful individuals in the past. I even keep in touch with those who haven’t succumbed to time.”
I looked between the two. I still thought it was a better idea to inform everypony of the possible danger rather than keeping it a secret… but they were the princesses. And planeswalkers, apparently. They had literal magnitudes more experience than I did here. So if they thought ignorance was a better option than knowledge here, I would respect their concerns and wishes.
But I sure wasn’t going to let it drop any time soon.
“What if everypony knew about the threat planeswalkers posed? Or these Eldrazi broods or Phyrexian contagions? Couldn’t we defend ourselves if we were prepared and informed?”
Celestia shook her head. “Not currently. Those enemies are completely unlike any other you and your friends have faced before.” She gestured to her trunk. “We had the displeasure of facing a Phyrexian splinter once, on the plane of… Azgol, was it?” She looked over to Luna, who nodded with a puckered grimace. “My record is written in there, but it’s not a story with a happy ending. The Azgolians were in a better position to combat them than any pony is today, and even with our assistance they still lost.”
She ruffled her wings. “These enemies operate on scales far greater than any villain here could match, with the possible exception of Discord, or ourselves if you turned the clock back to before the Mending. I don’t want to risk the possibility that one of my little ponies would accidentally attract their attention, or worse, try to bargain with them. When we deem ponykind is ready to take on the multiverse, then we will share everything we know.”
I chewed my bottom lip and gazed hard at the floor. Secrecy still didn’t sit right with me, but I was having a hard time coming up with another counterargument on the fly. That meant it was time to do some homework.
The fact that both princesses hadn’t come up with any fixes in their long lives was only mildly daunting.
“I can see that determined look in your eye,” Celestia said with a tiny smile. “I know ignorance is abhorrent to you. If you think of something, please, share it with us. I am a teacher; that I cannot safely share this knowledge with everyone is maddening at times.”
She put the book back in the trunk, closed it and levitated the whole thing over to me. I nodded once as I took the trunk in my own telekinesis. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will,” Luna said as she rose and stretched. “Now, if we are about finished here, we have two unknown planeswalkers to find. Any last questions?”
“Are all alicorns planeswalkers?” Spike chirped. Celestia blinked at him, while Luna arched an eyebrow at her sister. I cocked my head at him. I hadn’t spontaneously developed the ability to cross planes as far as I knew.
“No, Spike.” Celestia sighed, wistful. “As much as I would love for Twilight and Cadence to be planeswalkers like us, they are not.”
She rose, and Spike and I followed suit. “There are many wonderful, beautiful things out there that I would love to share, but ever since the Mending we have lost the strength to safely carry others through the Æther.” A pause. “Not that Lulu here isn’t a joy,” she said wryly, “but it’s quite difficult to give her the same look of foallike wonder anymore.”
They couldn’t even take me anywhere? I felt like I’d just had a brand-new, one-of-a-kind book taken away from me and shredded just as I’d read the hook, though my expression quickly lit up as an idea came to mind. “Is it possib-”
“Yea,” Luna interrupted, stern, “but for your sake do not pursue ways through the Æther without our supervision. Ignoring the fact that such research is extremely dangerous, the only technology that exists to do what thou’rt about to ask is ultimately derived from Phyrexia, and any ties with that accursed, dead plane should be burned. We cannot overstate it enough.”
And like that my momentum was brought to a screeching halt. Why did everything out there have to be so dangerous? I sighed, internally conceded that the princesses knew what they were talking about (especially since Luna reverted to her older dialect) and resolved to pull one aside at a later time. “Okay,” I answered meekly.
Luna’s face softened. “Please, I know this is trying. How about I avail you once the current issue is resolved?”
That fast? That did help soothe my wounded enthusiasm, at least. “I’ll hold you to it,” I said.
Oh horseapples, I’ll need to make sure the castle is spotless and have a list of everything I want to ask and get my instruments ready to take measurements and I should probably make a checklist. A small, selfish part of me hoped the situation wouldn’t resolve itself for at least a couple hours.
Luna smiled. “Then we shall be off. Have a pleasant afternoon, Twilight.”
“I’ll have a chariot ready for your departure,” Celestia added, procuring ink, quill and parchment from her nightstand. She jotted a quick message and sent it off with a flash of magic. “Be safe.”
“You too, princess.”
They crossed horns, and with a single, yellow and blue flash, they teleported elsewhere. Spike climbed onto my back again, and we both left, Celestia’s trunk trailing behind us.
Neither of us said much on the flight back. We were too busy thinking. Or maybe I was too busy thinking and Spike didn’t want to disturb me. When we returned to the castle of friendship, the first thing I did was put the trunk in my room, followed by gathering as much empty parchment as I could get my hooves on, and outlining the questions I would ask Luna when she returned. Spike had gone to the kitchens to fix dinner, the smell of his cooking wafted over to the library and reminded me that it had been a while since I’d eaten anything.
That was when a narcolepsy spell out of nowhere knocked me out.
